{"id":3250,"date":"2026-10-07T08:04:47","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T08:04:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cpiran.net\/english\/?p=3250"},"modified":"2026-10-07T08:04:49","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T08:04:49","slug":"protests-by-french-students-and-a-crisis-that-has-gone-beyond-the-classroom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cpiran.net\/english\/protests-by-french-students-and-a-crisis-that-has-gone-beyond-the-classroom\/","title":{"rendered":"Protests by French Students and a Crisis That Has Gone Beyond the Classroom"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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On Tuesday, October 6, hundreds of thousands of students, university students, teachers, parents, and union members took to the streets in various cities across France. The movement, which began three weeks ago at several high schools in the suburbs of Paris, has now become one of the country\u2019s most significant social and political events. But these protests cannot be seen merely as a reaction to deficiencies in education. What is boiling over in the high schools reflects a deeper crisis: an economy that has been weakened by successive blows for years, with working-class families and the younger generation bearing the greatest cost of this deterioration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to figures from France\u2019s Ministry of Education, on Tuesday 891 high schools out of approximately 3,700 nationwide “nearly one-quarter” were completely or partially closed or disrupted. By early afternoon, the Interior Ministry put the number of participants in demonstrations outside Paris at around 86,000, a figure that rose substantially with the participation of tens of thousands more in the capital. The protests now encompass Paris, Marseille, Lille, Lyon, Toulouse, Rennes, and Clermont-Ferrand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The protesters\u2019 demands are clear: increased funding for public education, replacement of absent teachers, reduced class sizes, renovation of deteriorating buildings, and tackling educational inequality. Students are also protesting the university admissions system \u201cParcoursup,\u201d long school hours, and shortages of healthcare and social-service staff. Their accounts of the condition of schools are shocking: classrooms without teachers, rats in dormitories, undrinkable water, and buildings on the verge of collapse. This picture, in one of the world\u2019s wealthiest countries, speaks for itself about the depth of the problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Student and labor unions have issued a new call for Thursday, October 8. Suzanne Nidam, head of the student union FAGE, has announced that protests and blockades of educational institutions will continue until the government allocates around \u20ac10 billion to the students\u2019 ten urgent demands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The way police forces have dealt with teenagers has become a second major focus of the protests. On Monday, in the city of Lens, a 15-year-old student lost his hand following the explosion of a police grenade. The prosecutor\u2019s office has entrusted the investigation to the General Inspectorate of the National Police, and images and testimonies are consistent with the explosion of a type of grenade used by law enforcement forces. In Paris, too, the area around Place de la Nation became a scene of tension and extensive use of tear gas, while observers from the French Human Rights League recorded the type and number of police munitions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Reuters, since the beginning of this wave, more than 6,100 people have been arrested, while more than 215 students, 85 education workers, and more than 700 police and gendarmerie officers have been injured. A petition on the National Assembly\u2019s website calls for the banning of weapons such as the LBD 40 and explosive grenades. A report by Le Monde from Clermont-Ferrand indicates that many parents specifically took to the streets to protest violence against their children. Repression, rather than silencing the movement, has broadened its social base.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The education union coalition has supported the students, and some secondary-school teachers\u2019 unions have called for strikes. In Paris, union stewards formed a barrier between students and the police along the demonstration route. The image is symbolic: a generation just entering the political arena has joined forces with organized workers. The connection between students, teachers, parents, and unions shows that the issue is no longer merely occupational, but has become a question about the future of public services and the share of society\u2019s wealth available to the people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To understand this anger, one must look at the trajectory of the French economy in recent years. The COVID-19 pandemic was the first major blow: the deep recession of 2020, the closure of workshops, and enormous support expenditures that pushed public debt to unprecedented levels. Before the economy had recovered from this shock, the war in Ukraine brought an energy crisis, a surge in prices, and inflation that eroded wages and families\u2019 purchasing power. Energy-intensive industries, which had already been falling behind in global competition, were among the hardest hit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

French industry has been on a downward trajectory for decades, and its share of gross domestic product has fallen to one of the lowest levels among Europe\u2019s major economies. Factory closures and the relocation of production abroad have turned old industrial regions, such as the north of the country where the city of Lens is located, into centers of unemployment and poverty. It is no coincidence that one of the most painful incidents of this movement occurred in this very region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now a new crisis “the tensions and war between Iran and the United States” has placed additional pressure on a fragile economy. Insecurity in the Persian Gulf region and along oil transportation routes has once again unsettled energy markets and darkened the outlook for European growth. For France, which faces a high budget deficit as well as pressure from European institutions and financial markets for fiscal discipline, every new shock means greater pressure to cut public spending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The result of this chain of events can be seen in the education budget. In the 2027 budget bill, the government plans to eliminate 1,588 education positions. Thus, the cost of crises that ordinary families played no role in creating is being taken out of schools, hospitals, and social services. Unions say that what has brought people into the streets today is the result of years of declining resources and a deepening gap between schools in wealthy neighborhoods and those in working-class and immigrant communities. A generation that went through the COVID period with disrupted education now faces overcrowded classrooms, uncertain employment prospects, and exhausting competition for university admission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Laurent Nu\u00f1ez, the interior minister, and \u00c9douard Geffray, the minister of national education, have been summoned to the National Assembly to answer questions. The government has spoken of discussions on five areas, including faster replacement of absent teachers, improving buildings, and reviewing students\u2019 daily schedules, but has made no commitment to increasing the budget or reversing the elimination of education positions. This very gap between general promises and the refusal to provide resources has fueled the protesters\u2019 anger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The protests by French students are a mirror reflecting the country\u2019s broader crisis. From COVID-19 to the war in Ukraine and tensions between Iran and the United States, every external shock has struck an economy with a declining industrial sector and heavy debt, while the government\u2019s response has been to reduce social spending. But the younger generation, together with teachers, parents, and unions, is showing that it is unwilling to pay for this crisis with its future. The fate of this movement will depend on its ability to maintain unity between students and working people and to expand educational demands into a defense of public services as a whole.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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